5 stars for Dans Tes Bras. A bit of a sleeper maybe... in the Malle collection .

I read about the sweat and the salt and mushrooms and even horses and just some downright weird reviews about this scent.

I first experienced it many years ago when I was looking for a violet scent . I sort of glossed over it in favor of shining star Carnal Flower and my love /hate relationship with Musc Ravageur,

Well I doused myself in Dans Tes Bras recently - I believe in total I sprayed myself at least 6 times from the tester bottle. I do not get mushrooms, horses or sweat or even salty skin .I do get violets . powder and musk . I asked the opinion of a complete stranger at lunch ( the table next to me ! ) about what he thought of this scent and gave him my wrist. He immediately said powder and musk .

Throughout the day Dans Tes Bras wafted around me , into my nose and around my head. The thought that came to mind was ' violety - pink' silk ribbons twirling in the wind around me in a white cloud of powdery musk. It definitely melds with skin .The violets are not even metallic ..but shiny.I just saw the Madonna tribute to Prince. She wore this shiny lilac suit in the Prince fashion with frills. Well Dans Tes Bras is that kind of shiny.

Dans Tes Bras came and went throughout my entire afternoon ,never changing but just those violet pink ribbons dancing. Amazing stuff. Enigmatic. It takes skill to do this !

Yes I see the reference to L'eau d'Hiver and also Apres L'Ondee but they are distant cousins.

Dans Tes Bras is subtle elegance . Unisex to me. Longevity was good . Sillage was good. Maybe it is the skin chemistry factor that I got no horse, sweat ,salt or mushrooms and thank goodness for that.

2008 FRederic Malle perfume by roucel who also did the very different,character wise, musc ravageur and iris silver mist. Accords from basenotes: bergamot, clove, Violet, jasmine ; sandalwood, patchouli, incense, cashmeran; basenotes are heliotrope and white musk. I pigeonhole this in the same kind of category as Eau d' Hiver.

Other reviewers ( on basenotes and Fragrantica) have mentioned mushrooms, Palmolive and a few have referenced a metallic, sterile scent, blood or bodily fluid, that I do not smell at all. (If you want a shocking fresh metallic, bodily fluid scent, I suggest sniffing someone else's vial of ELDO's Magnif. secretions). Ascribing these traits to Dans de bras is almost unfathomable IMO. I may not have a particularly sensitive nose, and am grateful not to smell these things here. I do agree with another reviewer who mentioned a similarity to wet ones brand antibacterial wipes.

My impression is modern synthetic ( this is not derogatory), sweet, powdery, musk meant to be a cosy comforting scent that, if sensual, evokes clean, not dirty. I get an emphasis on the cashmeran, heliotrope and musk on my skin with a slight opening lift from the bergamot and Violet that subtly fades away. Sometimes I get a sense of marshmallows. I am not a fan of cashmeran, or of white musk, or even of heliotrope, but for those that are, I would recommend trying this. I do get a salty skin scent sensation in the far dry down that is responsible for another star in my rating. Perhaps that salty sensation translates into an iodine or blood type tinge for other people.

IMO, It's close to the skin and would be fine for an office scent as it smells clean without referencing an overt briny marine, calone or citrus accord. It also seems transparent and weightless like the totally different iris silver mist, but neither are at all weak in strength.

No indolic jasmine ( with which I tend to have issues). When accords list jasmine these days, I don't know if it refers to hedione, which supposedly gives a sense of radiance to a fragrance (Sadly my amateur nose wouldn't be able to detect it) I did get a fleeting sensation of leather and smoke, but perhaps it was just a whiff of suede - nothing overtly phenolic ( I also have an issue with overly leathery scents like bandit or Cuir de Russie)I have not tried Donna Karan's black cashmere, but I wonder if this would appeal to those who liked BC.

Totally unisex and ageless. FM calls this a feminine scent. I don't see that, but I am a woman who wears scents of both genders. IMO, this projects a kind of laundered t shirt or fluffy teddy bear appeal. I could imagine my father in law wearing this (he went from Canoe to davidoff cool water, to Burberry Brit - which I registered as fruity, sweet, powdery, unisex) or a dear male friend who just got married. ( for the friend, I had originally suggested Eau d' Hiver, which he has worn it for years. This seems along the same lines. My husband on the other hand prefers something with more of a sharp high note, and he currently wears Vetiver Extraordinaire.

Incidentally, in the far dry down, I get the sense of some similarity to Geranium Pour Monsieur, but maybe it's just both seem to occupy the same weight, rate of fade and skin scent type feeling on my skin rather than actual accords in common. No salt in Geranium, but a wood that is neither pungent, leathery, powdery or loud).

Note: I just realized that my comparisons were all within the FM line. I am a fan of FM ( currently I wear a lot of Une rose and POAL; in the past, one of my favorite scents was UFdC). I do think that as a group of scents they work well as a capsule wardrobe, but the reason why I reference FM scents for comparison is that I don't have many modern salty heliotrope scents to compare with this. I also should clarify that while powdery, it's not at all the level of powdery of, for example, the modern version of L' Heure Bleue or SL fumerie Turque or Iris Poudre. Perhaps the salt cuts the powder.

Didn't like this the first few times I tried my sample, it smelled metallic and synthetic to me. But today I tried again and I am smitten. Yes it still has a floral/mineral opening but once it settles on my skin it is a lovely almost "moist" smell that is somehow intimate but not in a sexual way. Rather it smells like you just got out of the shower and it's still a really hot and humid day and you are freshly perspiring. There is no staleness to this or B.O. rather it's like skin but better. Sillage is restrained but present and lasting power is quite good at approx. 6 hours. I find it very unique and extremely sexy. On my list it goes . . . . . . .Oh yes, and it is musky, but not the squeaky clean chemical kind. This has a hint of skank and it is GLORIOUS. Thank you Maurice Roucel !

I love violets and loved this in the store... gorgeous, transparent violets, laundry and a salty skin smell that tempered the sweetness. I liked it enough to make an impulse buy, which I don't usually with perfume. I couldn't stop sniffing it all day. What came out of the bottle I brought home with me, however, smelled like a sweaty armpit that dried out and was then sprayed with cheap perfume on top. I don't know if I got a bad batch or what but I've only worn it a handful of times since buying it and might actually hate it.

With Frederic Malle’s Dans Tes Bras, Maurice Roucel wanted to recreate the scent of warm, salty skin… mission accomplished! Dans Tes Bras means “in your arms” and the name suits it perfectly: it is a very intimate, personal fragrance. To me, it’s like having my soul rubbed on my skin’s surface. For this reason, I don’t see it as a crowd pleaser, but maybe I am wrong here, who knows.

How does it smell like? At first sniff, violets. But not the kind of powdery violets we usually find in perfumes. This violet is metallic, adstringent, almost an alien, but also beautiful in its own weirdness. It’s almost like it grew up in the same kind of soil that would only grow mushrooms. I’m not a garden person, I don’t even know if this is possible. All my life, I’ve only seen violets in vases.

As the scent dries down, the violets become more subdued, but never leave the stage. The cashmeran takes over, though, and this may be a deal breaker for some people: Dans Tes Bras, in the drydown, is a cashmeran overdose disguised as a perfume. The result is a salty skin scent, not exactly sweat-salty, but like clean, sundried skin after a bath in the ocean. Is it beachy? Well, only if you see the island of “Lost” as the perfect place for a tropical resort.

Dans Tes Bras needs to be handled with caution. It has lots of silage and one of the best lasting powers I’ve ever seen. It will also transfer to almost anything you touch and stay there forever (or at least until washing).

The notes include: bergamot, clove, violet, jasmine, sandalwood, patchouli, incense, cashmeran, heliotrope and white musk. I don’t see it fitting in a scent group box, but it wouldn’t be wrong calling it a woody-violet scent, grounded with a lot of musk. It is dry without being powdery, it is a skin scent, but it is “loud” (in terms of silage). Some say it is the most “intellectual” of the Malle’s, I say it is a paradox.

I love this, it fits my skin and personality perfectly. I am 17 years old, I really love to be outside, I'd say that I'm sophisticated but I am not grown up enough to wear many of the perfumes that I like. (Une Fleur De Cassie, Iris Poudre)On me, this smells like walking in the woods and smelling violets and getting a tiny bit sweaty (not in a body odour way, but salty skin). It smells lovely and natural and melds with my skin. It doesn't have tons of sillage which I like, it's really easy to apply. 2 squirts is the perfect amount. Full bottle worthy for me.

I'm not one for subtle perfume with low sillage. This is, in many ways, an overpriced skin-scent. Sometimes it deserves full marks and at other times it's held back a year. It's not really 'me' -- but I enjoy it.

So I'll be a sport and review the full marks version. Gothic girls will love this if they smell what I smell. I'm talking quiet, bookish, grown-up gothic girls -- not necessarily the goth-next-door. It's much better than Messe de Minuit because, on my skin, DTB has a similar emotional vibe (don't let my language lose you here!) but with more of an interest factor. DTB's more crypt-like, damp and earthy than the Etro. Not projection heavy, it wears close to the skin and in about an hour becomes a charmingly synthetic musky skin scent to which I'm sometimes (sadly) anosmic. Lasting power for a niche perfume is dire -- that usually makes me take a lippie or two off...but...it's Roucel, it's conceptual, intellectual, ephemeral, artificial and natural all at once -- and you can try it and not buy it...so.... The cashmeran-blond-woods-muskiness is obvious in the dry down and, to me, from time to time, more significant than the ever-so-slightly-salted-violet aspect.

The synthetic and the natural are comfortable together, taking turns. Sometimes I smell it and think 'modern, artificial, almost ozonic (yes, I said the dreaded 'O' word) intellectual' and at other times (usually the first 15-30 minutes) I think 'naturally aged, end-stage decay, sweet, cerebral'. So either way, it's clever. It's a puzzler. That's one of the main reasons I can't give it anything less than full marks: it keeps me guessing, wondering whether I did the right thing in wearing it, trying to catch each stage of the change, thinking: is it hormones? is it perception, is it anosmia (sometimes a huge issue, I suspect it's the cashmeran) -- that makes this fragrance so hard to pin down? Has Roucel pulled a fast one on me because he knows I like his work? Is this a creation experiment gone horribly wrong...but on the second take, has an incredibly beautiful face? Does DTB want to be human, does she really? Does she need to be defined?

The rest of the review discusses more associations, not so much with other scents but with random things: characters, films, mental images and so on.

First time I smelled it, it smelled of mildew and violets. Brilliant! The cashmeran was in the backgorund and all I got was the surreal image of violets growing in a crypt, covered in a fungal caul. I almost saw the salt-dusted violets shimmer with life under a shroud of fungus. Beautiful. Very 'life vs. death'. It wasn't decay so much as 'a taking over'. But then I considered 'the decay aspect' -- it's more like the aftermath of the ripe, rotten period of decay, when all that remains is a musty shadow of the original organism. Peter Greenaway's wonderful time-lapse shots of decomposition from A Zed and Two Noughts flashed in my mind. Magic!

Then the scent develops. After the stealth-fungus, something amazing happens: the violets rise from the stone floor of the crypt, break through a carpet of mould and stretch up into the dark. For me it's a fragrance with two vivid, visually antithetical notes struggling for supremacy. I didn't put my money on the violets, but they win, eventually driving the mould underfoot. A perfect dirty-pretty dance.

This is Marla in Fight Club smoking a cigarette. Wearing a second-hand, one dollar bridesmaid's dress. Talking about Christmas trees and sex crime victims on the roadside. Dan Tes Bras is something you might find down the rabbit hole...if you took a wrong turn.

It isn't overtly floral but it's a bit too sweet for me and it smells slightly soapy, which is one of my least favorite perfume notes. It is soft and elegant, sophisticated. There is nothing cheap or brash about this scent, it just isn't the right one for me.

Dans tes Bras is a very strange fragrance. I can barely describe it, so please bear with me. The opening is a burst of earthy, pungent violets. It is not a crowd-pleaser, so I usually let it settle before I go out. The drydown is heavenly and mysterious and unusual. The quality of this scent is evident in the drydown, which brings in a soft skin-like musk that never veers into cheap white musk territory. Slightly salty and woody, the violets always remain prominent. The strangest part of Dans Tes Bras is its texture, which I can only describe as waxy yet soft, like the residue of a scented candle you were just holding. This is a scent that I would never have thought to try on my own, but thanks to the aggressive spritzes of an SA, I discovered Dans Tes Bras. While I thought it was too strange at first, a few hours later, I was entraced by the scent wafting up from my wrist, and I'm very glad I sought it out again.

Having just purchased a bottle of Musc Ravageur, I was given a sample of Dans Tes Bras.

Which I found to be tepid and all over the place. The copy is beautifully written and evocative of cafes and tea-shops. I do wish the perfume came close to emulating the warmth of the advertising copy but instead we have a perfume that is lacklustre and charmless. The inital notes are acrid and smell vaguely of chemicals and it didn't get better in the middle and base notes. I couldn't wait to scrub my wrists.Marcel Roucel concocted THIS? Much sniffing couldn't detect the many accords listed in the chart. All I found was insipidity.

By what irony do the perfumes you don't care for linger on in a way than the ones you really like - seldom do?

For me, Dans Tes Bras is a rare clunker in the Frederic Malle line up. But with all perfumes, I try to remember that much of it is skin chemistry and subjectivity. Each to his or her own...